Elon Musk’s “Plan” to Cure Traffic With Tunnels Is Terrible and Ridiculous

Let's not pretend that Elon Musk's idea to bypass LA congestion by building a tunnel under the city -- first Tweeted out while he was apparently stewing in traffic -- is at all practical or worthy of serious consideration.

But it is good for ridicule.

Burying highways under cities isn't a new idea. Boston's "Big Dig" became shorthand for "infrastructure boondoggle" for a generation. A similar project underway in Seattle is shaping up to be nearly as big a fiasco.

Even if boring under cities to add highway lanes was cheap and easy (this is Musk's big tease -- that he's somehow going to revolutionize the process), it still wouldn't solve the problem. But Musk doesn't seem to be aware of the law of induced demand, writes Leah Binkovitz at Rice University's the Urban Edge:

If LA has learned anything from its recent experience widening the 405, it will run the other way from this idea. After $1.6 billion was spent on a carpool lane, data shows the road is as congested as ever.

More recommended reading: Plan Philly reports that a local council member's move to make sidewalk furniture subject to special approval was rescinded after public outcry. And in light of a particularly bad bike bill in the Minnesota statehouse, Streets.mn considers what a thoughtful proposal to improve the safety of cyclists would look like.